


Everything Has Changed

by starhoneyy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Getting Together, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lee Taeyong-centric, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, Love, M/M, Reuniting, Slice of Life, Song: Everything Has Changed (Taylor Swift), Time Skips, Warm, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starhoneyy/pseuds/starhoneyy
Summary: When Taeyong was ten, he scraped his knees.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 15
Kudos: 101





	Everything Has Changed

When Taeyong was ten, he scraped his knees. He had been on his bike then, ears covered in warm, furry muffs, and finger-gloved hands wrapped tightly around the handles of his brand new bike as he rode around the lake area alone. He'd be safe, he promised his mother that, pinky finger wrapped around hers as she hugged him with a force too strong for his lithe body, and yet, he still didn't let go. There was nothing like the warmth of a mother and the transient feeling of their love, so at ten, he held on tighter, squeezing with what little strength he had at the time.

But, when he had scraped his knees, his mother wasn't there for him to hold — she wasn't there to soothe him, to rub those comforting circles on his back with the pads of her thumbs and hush his cries until they faded into nothing. There was blood soaking through his trousers, and it stung like a hundred little shards of glass had been rubbed across it and dug into his skin. Taeyong wept into his cold hands, the gloves scratching at his eyes that were blurred with a river of tears.

There was a crunch — a snap of wood and the crinkle of dry leaves — before he looked up, lips trembling and eyes blinded with tears. He blinked a few times at the figure hovering over him — another little boy with black, ruffled hair, and a large winter coat to keep him warm. He was staring at Taeyong, too, and Taeyong looked down at his vermillion-painted knee with a whine, not wanting to keep eye contact with the boy because even his ten year old self could feel something akin to embarrassment and shame. He wished for the boy to go away. He wished for his mother to be with him. He wished that he had never decided to ride his bike so fast in the woods.

The boy crouched down, sniffling and red-nosed. There was a dust of pink over his cheeks from the cold, and as he touched Taeyong's knee, Taeyong could feel the temperature of his skin permeate through his clothes. "What are you doing?" he asked, lips wobbling — teetering back and forth like one of those seesaws he used to play with in his cousin's garden.

"Your leg is broken," the boy answered with a frown, blood coating his fingers as he rubbed the area absentmindedly. Taeyong's breath hitched from the cold, feeling small hands pat around the area delicately as if such soft touches were enough to close over the wound that had viciously split open. The pain in his knee dimmed as he stared at the worried boy, and it was replaced with something else — something low, something tender, something warm despite the chill of the beautiful winter air.

"It's not broken," Taeyong answered him quietly, not liking how his voice trembled so much.

He steadied his breathing as the boy looked up at him with large, wide, and kind eyes. There was concern swimming in them, and he recognised it as the look his mother would give him whenever he'd take a chair and place it at the counter and climb on it to reach the biscuit tin at the top of the cupboard. That was the expression she’d momentarily wear before her features got hard again, and she'd use that tone that always nearly made him cry from humiliation.

But, she'd pull him in and apologise even though Taeyong had been the naughty one. She'd always lean in, kiss his forehead, and mumble; _I love you._

The boy glanced down at his knee again before his cherubic cheeks tinted bright, red and he scratched the back of his head. "You're right. It's not broken."

He was holding back a smile, but Taeyong could still see the hollow of his cheeks from where his dimples were. He reached out a hand to touch them, startling the boy and himself even, and he pulled back but was caught by the boy's hand in his — they were cold, frozen like fish fingers, just as he had noticed in the very beginning. The boy squeezed his gloved hand and stood up, holding unto Taeyong's all the while.

"Can you stand?" he asked, blinking down at him.

Taeyong blinked back, doe eyes widening. The boy was shorter than him, he registered belatedly. "Yes.. I think so."

The boy nodded, taking a step back so as to allow more space for Taeyong to get up. Taeyong held his hand tightly as he was pulled up, and winced when a sharp pain, like an electric bolt, shot through his leg, originating from his knee. He let out a slow, shallow breath, shutting his eyes as he steadied himself on his feet. The boy pulled him in by his side, and Taeyong wrapped a hand instinctively around his shoulder, and the boy's hand went around his waist, balancing him.

“Come, I'll take you home," he told Taeyong, slipping another hand in his.

He had left his bike behind, he distantly remembered, but he focused on the fact that there was a hand holding his, and that the pain itself had evaporated into thin air.

At fourteen, Taeyong thought boys lips were pretty — specifically, he thought _Jaehyun's_ lips were pretty.

They were plump and pink, and whenever he'd laugh and throw his head back, they'd part and separate into an 'O' shape, musical notes falling from the cusps of his lips. Taeyong focused on them a lot when they talked, eyes zeroed in on the way they moved fluently, steadily, and smoothly like a rush of running water. Taeyong's lips weren't pretty — he always tripped over his words, and he had an awful habit to stutter no matter how many speech therapy lessons he went to. But, Jaehyun didn't have that problem, Jaehyun always knew what he was saying before he said it — always so articulate, always so smart, always so brilliant.

One day, someone in their friend group had noticed him staring. They must have always noticed him staring. Perhaps that was just the day he'd finally gotten on their nerves.

"Wait, Jae, he's doing it again," Yuta pointed out, and they all stopped — Jaehyun, Winwin, Johnny, and him — to focus on Yuta instead. Jaehyun was just telling them about how he'd got a five star kill streak in COD when Yuta's voice came in the sound of a sneer. Taeyong looked away, breath tight now that Jaehyun's speech was over. He always seemed to hold his breath when Jaehyun was talking — watching, waiting. "Did you see it? I told you he's always doing that shit."

"What?" Jaehyun let out an awkward laugh, and the other boys followed in chorus. Taeyong stayed quiet, eyes darting between the four of them.

Yuta got up on his knees from where they were sat in a circle in Sicheng's room with his formula one posters and autographed photo of Lewis Hamilton that his dad had gotten him on a business trip. Yuta pointed his finger directly at Taeyong in conviction but spoke directly to Jaehyun. "I told you, like, two weeks ago. He's always staring at your lips, bro!" From Taeyong's peripheral, he saw a frown ebb its way into Jaehyun's features. Yuta continued, egged on by the silence, "Like he wants to.. like he wants to _kiss you_ or something!"

There was a pause of silence — a large, tangible, pregnant beat, in which Taeyong felt his heartbeat quicken and a handful of cotton stuff itself into his mouth, making it run dry. Taeyong's eyes flickered between Jaehyun and Yuta, mind racing. Jaehyun, on the other hand, was stoic.

"No fucking way!" Johnny laughed, always the one to break up the awkward silences, always to one to draw them back in together — the foundation or sticky PVA glue of their friendship. Yuta scrunched his nose, settling back down, and Sicheng stayed quiet at first before giggling. Yuta narrowed his eyes at him, and Taeyong diverted his, feeling like Yuta was seeing into his being — poking and prodding at the depths of his mind that even Taeyong hadn't dared to venture.

"I... I don't like him," Taeyong said quietly, struggling to keep his eyes focused on Yuta when all he wanted to do was stare at those pretty lips in waiting for words that would either let the muscles of his bones relax or damn him.

"Yeah, but you still look like you wanna kiss him," Yuta added with a mutter, never satisfied unless he was the one to get in the last word. Taeyong's heart clenched in his chest, breathing constricting as his hands went clammy. He felt like Yuta knew something.. Yuta knew something he _didn't know_. Johnny and Sicheng too. Even Jaehyun — even lovely Jaehyun with those heart shaped lips and soft dimples — was looking at him like he _knew_ him; like he knew his innermost thoughts and the dreams of warm lips that haunted and plagued him in the dead of the night.

Suddenly, Jaehyun turned and kicked at Yuta's feet. "Shut up man."

Taeyong felt the knots of his bones unwind, he didn't know what he had been expecting.

"Whatever," Yuta said with a scowl. He paused then, lips curling into a sly smirk. He went on his knees, stunning all of them, and crawled forward until he was right in front of Jaehyun. Taeyong watched with bated breath, body frigid at the sight of the exchange. Yuta leaned forward, and so, Jaehyun leaned back. He had gone back further and further until his back was against the floor and Yuta was hovering above him menacingly. "Taeyong and Jaehyun sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!"

Johnny found the whole thing hilarious it seemed, because he threw his head back in unabashed laughter, and even Sicheng had begun to cup a flurry of giggles behind his hand. Jaehyun grinned, but Taeyong's lips trembled. Always the sensitive one, the voice of in the back of his mind told him, and if Yuta were it, he'd add _take a fucking joke!_

"Get off me, you dick," Jaehyun joked with a grumble, but made no efforts to _really_ push him off. He was _allowing_ it.

Yuta's smile grew impossibly wider. "Yeah, but then Taeyong would wrap his lips around—"  
  
Jaehyun kneed him in the balls, and Yuta toppled over before he could get any further. Johnny was practically writhing on the floor with laughter, and Sicheng let the chortles from his lips escape easily, no longer bothering to hide them behind his hand at the sight of Yuta clutching his balls. Taeyong stood up abruptly and ran for the door, his vision fuzzed around the edges with growing wetness.

He heard Jaehyun's voice on the way out, calling for him maybe, but above that, he could hear Yuta's overpowering words chanting in his head and out loud about how Taeyong was _so. fucking. sensitive._

Nobody followed him out.

At sixteen, Taeyong had attended his first school high school dance. His mother had brought out the tuxedo his father had worn when he was alive to their own prom, and she'd gone on a tangent whilst fixing his bow tie about how sweet it was to have a high school lover — how beautiful a first kiss was, how it was to hold someone's hand, how thrilling it was to elope with them in the middle of the night. Taeyong couldn't relate, but he let his mothers continue on, eyes sparkling as she went on about a man she had never married.

Johnny's dad had carpooled, picking them up all up one by one. He was third in the car and sat beside Yuta who was all too enthusiastic about telling him how Jennie said she'd kiss him come midnight. Taeyong listened patiently and quietly, putting in his input where he felt like it was needed. He had played the role he had felt so forced to be in around everyone — everyone but Jaehyun, that is.

Jaehyun looked beautiful that night — _handsome,_ actually, because Jaehyun would get a bit prissy at the time when Taeyong would let the words pretty or beautiful accidentally slip from his lips. He was wearing a tuxedo, too, but he didn't look gangly in his, it wasn't too loose and short around the arms — it fit his slim and broad chest perfectly, tie tucked carefully into his jacket. And he slid into the car with one of those wonderful smiles — the ones that made Taeyong's heart rabbit and a cascade of butterflies erupt in his tummy.

He placed a hand on his knee as they drove, and Taeyong smiled smally, trying to keep his jittery legs at bay.

The dance had been fun; the girls and boys had mixed and mingled, not like the high school parties he'd see on american television at all. And they all danced together; upbeat songs, breakdance ones, even slower ones. It had come to a slower one when Jaehyun approached him again, hand out like he had been some sort of prince charming — and he _was,_ to Taeyong at least; a sort of angel-like glow emanating from Jaehyun’s figure as he approached.

Taeyong snuck a glance at the people around them, wondering if it was just the two of them being weird again, but Jaehyun reassured him it was fine, like he always did, a light whisper in his ear — _it's alright, Tae, we're fine. You're good._ And Taeyong would listen because Jaehyun's words had made the world around them melt and his body focus on what had really mattered; them.

Taeyong had done it then — that stupid action he'd been thinking about since he was fourteen, or even _before_ then. He'd went up on his tippy toes — Jaehyun had grown from the ten year old boy he once was — and placed his lips to his in a breathtaking _kiss._

And it had been everything he'd ever imagined and more. It was those same butterflies, but stronger, and fireworks — charged spikes buzzing and swirling in his belly, and heart picking up its pace from the mere touch of Jaehyun's lips on his as he kissed him back, arm wrapped around Taeyong's waist. Taeyong had let himself fall pliant, like dough, like butter, like a pool or puddle of water and jelly at his knees. Jaehyun hadn't been the one to pull away from it, though, _Taeyong_ had.

There was a gasp, and his peaceful bubble was broken. Taeyong had ripped himself away from Jaehyun's fingertips and did what he had always chosen to do every time he was faced with a challenge in his life till then; _run._

That time, however, Jaehyun had followed.

At eighteen, Taeyong had said his first ever goodbye. He'd never said one like that before because he'd kept his friends, the ones that hadn't drifted, and he had never gotten the chance to say goodbye to his father in the first place. So, the entire thing was awfully unfamiliar. Taeyong didn't think it'd come with an ocean of tears, a weak heart, or a pain so strong and stark it felt physical, gripping at the threads of his being. He didn't like goodbye's, he had decided from that day on. Not when his first ever goodbye was to _Jaehyun._

"It's not permanent," Jaehyun reassured him, hands carding through Taeyong's hair gently, holding his boyfriend despite the fact that his bags were already sitting in the car, and the rumbling of an engine could be heard from inside Jaehyun’s small bedroom. He had cupped Taeyong's cheeks in his hands then and kissed away his salty tears one by one, keeping it together if only for Taeyong's sake. Taeyong could feel it in the way Jaehyun’s breath trembled and the edge of his words hinted at being _unsure._ "We can make it work, okay?"

Taeyong looked up through the flurry of tears. Jaehyun had always looked at him so _lovingly._ "We can?" he asked, voice below a whisper, scared and afraid of Jaehyun going off and never coming back — of Jaehyun becoming some big time American doctor and not wanting him anymore because he was in the big leagues, and Taeyong was just a small town boy belonging to his past life.

They had always said first loves didn't last.

Jaehyun, in his endless reassurances, pressed his lips to Taeyong's forehead and murmured a quiet, honest, and _earnest,_ "We can."

At nineteen, Taeyong had his first big fight. It was huge, explosive, destructible — enough to break up a once solid relationship. And it was because of _him._ It was because of his own dumb stupidity, of his insecurities, of his own dark, harrowing thoughts. Jaehyun would get tired of him — Jaehyun _was_ tired of him, and soon he'd slip through Taeyong's fingers completely, like sand in an hourglass, rough and tiny, each piece a part of Taeyong's heart.

Taeyong was stupid. Jaehyun wasn't cheating. He knew it deep down in his heart and in the forefront of his mind that Jaehyun would never do such a thing, and yet, he had accused him again, again, and _again_ — insecurities chipping away at his trust even when the larger part of him knew the truth. He'd wept into the covers of his bed the day Jaehyun had cut the call and told him he was _done,_ that he needed a _break,_ that it was hurting him everyday to be the target of Taeyong's accusations. Taeyong wept that day, the following days, and the coming weeks after.

He'd wept the day Jaehyun had finally picked up his video call and answered him back, reassuring him a million and one times that it was fine now, even without Taeyong's whirlpool of apologies. He simply placed his hand to the screen of his laptop for Taeyong to hold, and as Taeyong put his hand on the cold, reflecting glass, wishing to feel the warmth of his fingers, Jaehyun had reassured him even then;

"I love you, Bubu."

Taeyong had broken down into tears.

At twenty two, Taeyong applied for a visa.

At twenty three, it was approved.

On Jaehyun's twenty fourth birthday, he had booked a one way flight to New York with nothing but his heart and two luggage bags in tow. Jaehyun was just as he had promised — waiting. His arms were wide open, and his face had broken into the widest grin Taeyong had ever seen in his life, and he looked older, and muscular, and _human,_ not a pixelated man through a screen.

Jaehyun had looked _beautiful._

His arms had been familiar, and his lips were softer than Taeyong had remembered. He had held Taeyong to his chest and _squeezed,_ as if any looser, Taeyong would slip away from his reach completely and back into the screen he'd been previously confined to. But, Taeyong was with him. Taeyong was real. Taeyong had leaned in to whisper a low and raw, "I miss you."

And when Jaehyun held his hand, Taeyong had wished to smooth out the calluses in his palms and kiss away the rough lines weathered from tear, wear, and hard work. But, he had all the time in the world to do that. He had the rest of his _life_ to do that.

Jaehyun smiled, dimpled. "Come, I'll take you home."

**Author's Note:**

> oh wow, i actually wrote fluffly jaeyong for once. i think. i hope you liked it, though!!! <3  
> [twt](https://mobile.twitter.com/starhoneyy)  
> [cc activities](https://curiouscat.qa/starhoneyyy)


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